How MedView's GM Solved Visas for His Team, and Himself

Concord handled visas for my team and for me, I didn't have to think about immigration once. They just made it work.

Hugo Kan

General Manager @ MedView

Overview

Hugo Kan runs MedView, Australasia's leading medical school admissions programme and a key division within Crimson Education. Since its founding in Auckland in 2007, MedView has helped thousands of aspiring doctors prepare for UCAT exams, interviews, and medical school applications, generating over 200 offers to Australian medical schools and 40+ to New Zealand programmes in a single year alone.

Hugo's career at Crimson spans nearly a decade and multiple continents. A trained solicitor with degrees in law and property from Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland, he joined Crimson early, rising from Acting Country Manager in Singapore to Vice President of Regional Growth overseeing P&L across EMEA markets including the UAE, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, and Spain. Today he leads MedView's operations from Auckland, managing a business that serves students across Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

But running an education business across borders means people need to move. Tutors, specialists, and operational staff need to be where the students are. And Hugo himself needed to be where the business demanded. That's where things got complicated.

Challenge

The Double Burden: Sponsoring Staff and Navigating His Own Visa

Most leaders deal with immigration from one side, either they're the employee who needs a visa, or they're the employer sponsoring someone else. Hugo had to do both. As GM, he was responsible for getting his team into the right markets at the right time. But he also needed his own visa situation sorted — and the two problems competed for the same bandwidth. For any C-suite executive, this creates a particular tension. You're meant to be running the business, not buried in nomination paperwork, market salary rate benchmarks, and Skilling Australians Fund levies. But when your own ability to be in-country depends on the same system, you can't delegate the way you normally would.

Multiple Visa Types, Multiple People, Multiple Timelines

MedView didn't need one visa solved, it needed a whole immigration strategy. The team required Subclass 482 visas to bring skilled staff into Australia, Subclass 186 (Temporary Residence Transition) pathways to convert temporary workers into permanent residents, SC 400 short-stay visas for time-sensitive business needs, and business visitor visas for travel that didn't fit neatly into other categories.

Compliance Risk in a Regulated Industry

Education businesses operate under their own layer of regulatory scrutiny. Add immigration compliance on top, where penalties for getting things wrong range from financial fines to having your sponsorship capability cancelled entirely — and the stakes get high fast. A single misstep in record-keeping, salary benchmarking, or nomination paperwork could jeopardise MedView's ability to sponsor anyone in the future.

The Turning Point: A Single Partner Across Every Visa

Concord took on the full scope of MedView's immigration needs, not just one visa for one person, but the entire portfolio across the organisation.

For MedView's staff, Concord managed the 482 sponsorship process end-to-end: labour market testing, nomination paperwork, compliance documentation, and lodgement. When team members became eligible for permanent residency, Concord guided them through the 186 Temporary Residence Transition stream, turning temporary positions into long-term commitments for the business and the individuals.

For shorter-term needs, staff travelling for training, business meetings, or student-facing events, Concord handled SC 400 and business visitor applications, ensuring MedView's people could move when and where the business needed them without risking compliance issues.

And for Hugo himself, Concord managed his personal visa alongside the rest of the organisation's needs. Having one team that understood the full picture, the business, the staff, and the GM, meant nothing fell through the cracks and every case was handled with context.

"Having one partner who understands the whole business, not just one visa in isolation, changes everything. They knew who we needed where, and when."

The Outcome

MedView now has a clear, managed immigration strategy that covers its team across Australia and New Zealand. Staff who arrived on 482 visas have transitioned to permanent residency through the 186 pathway. Short-term travel is handled cleanly. And Hugo can focus on running MedView, growing the programme, supporting students, and expanding into new markets, instead of managing visa paperwork.

For a business that serves students across three countries and needs its people in multiple markets simultaneously, having immigration taken care of isn't a nice-to-have. It's what keeps the operation running.